SEEK
by CaTigeReptile
Summary: G1. Chapter 5: Starscream thinks!. Right now the title is 'SEEK' because it's focusing on the Seekers, but eventually this will become more of an actionflick type story, but pfft, did you really think I would complete it? Haha, I only complete oneshots!
1. SEEK

A note: The tone may vary from serious, action-filled, philosophical, or humorous, depending on how I feel. This part is more like a prologue so it's a little serious and impersonal.

Another note: I don't read the comics because I don't have the money. I was tempted to use the Marvel Comics Cybertronian time words (Breem, Vorn, Cycle, etc) but I thought I should be consistent if I'm not in comic book continuum. Maybe I'll end up changing that just because it sounds cool and alien.

It's G1 and I don't know if you would consider it AU because in the G1 cartoon (Pre TF:TM which just doesn't even count ), none of the origins are explained. So it's like G1 was just continuing in its good ol' wacky way.

Disclaimer: Since this is clearly fanfiction, do I legally even need one?

* * *

At the time, it really seemed like a good idea. 

A new breed of scientist - to hunt for knowledge and to seek out discovery. About eight million years ago this breed was designed.

Three archetypes for three sciences - Chemistry, Biology, and Physics. These three designs, while being developed, were developed under the new Cybertronian program, called Scientific Exploration and Expansion of Knowledge - or SEEK, for short. The team of developers nicknamed their three projects as, fittingly, the "Seekers".

The template for the three was basically the same, with minor differences in molding, but the personality chips were designed to best fit the seekers' respective sciences.

Personality chips and programmed databases, however, do little in comparison to the Spark. The spark, as recorded in the scriptures of Primus, is what separates the Transformer race from the petro-rabbits and the first robot race to inhabit Cybertron. The spark grants sentience, the gift of Primus.

Of course, since worshiping the scriptures of Primus was a practice growing obsolete during the Third Cybertronian Enlightenment, the spark was simply the thing that made a transformer who they were. Why or How were irrelevant, because it was considered beyond Transformer comprehension and thus shouldn't be a concern. However, this philosophy was only successful among the intelligencia of Cybertron, because those who did not have the luxury of education or time for pondering found that the scriptures of Primus gave simple and easy answers to the impossible questions that come with sentience.

Since there was work to be done, the developers didn't have time to ponder that for very long, because they had to go down to the center of Cybertron to finish their "Seekers".

At the time, it was relatively easy to get down to Vector Sigma.

A concern that always plagues a scientist when building a new transformer is that the only way to find out if there's a fault in the personality chip or a glitch in the programmed database is once the Transformer has been given their spark and activated - "born", in another sense. Because of the nature of the spark, there is a level of uncertainty and helplessness beyond the comfort level of most scientists - they do not know if the quirk is from an error they made, or if it's simply in the new robot's spark. And since the robot is now a sentient Transformer, attempting to find out has dire consequences for the new Transformer, and, consequently, its creator.

The scientists on the SEEK team were no exception. The ones who weren't transporting the three Seekers were staring into the ancient relic left behind by the Quintessons, both spherical and multifaceted at the same time - if Primus was real, thought one particularly philosophical member of the team, it would be something like Vector Sigma.

Like many other rooms, the grand room of which Vector Sigma was the centerpiece had walls. On the left wall there was an indentation that served as a shelf, and on that shelf were two things: A small metal box, and a button of around the same size. Back in these days all one needed to awaken Vector Sigma was a first generation Transformer with a finger.

Generally, the first thing a new Transformer does after experiencing self-realization is to name themselves. This is an instinctual reaction to discovering that they are a separate and unique entity in the universe. It also indicates to the creators the nature of the new Transformer.

Naturally, the scientist who spearheaded this SEEK development project, a young, cutting-edge scientist with fresh ideas who had even earned the nickname the Scientist, was eager to find out what his projects would be like. His excitement was visible - the large Transformer was so antsy that it looked like he was programmed into a child-phase.

With a button-press by the Elder recruited to activate Vector Sigma, the entire room was enveloped by a burst of white light - radiation or some other form of energy - and the Scientist found himself looking up into a light gray face - one he'd never seen before, but one that looked oddly familiar.

"Whoah, you okay there, buddy?", said a low and rumbling voice - not a deep voice, but low enough.

Success! The Scientist gave a smile so goofy that the newly-sparked Seeker jumped back in frantic confusion. Facial expressions were not a part of a Transformer's personality chip or native databases, so the seeker's reaction did not particularly surprise the Scientist. He did, however, decide that standing up might be taken as an act of aggression, so he only rose to a sitting position.

"I'm alright." As a matter of fact, he was fabulous. But the Scientist had to keep calm, keep cool. "I call myself The Scientist", he said slowly, as if talking to a child - which, he figured, he basically was.

The seeker nodded slowly, mouth in a line, optics never straying from the Scientist

"Cool."

Failure! The Scientist felt his energon pump sink into his cockpit. Something must have gone terribly wrong if the Seeker hadn't named itself yet. Voice strained but still calm, he asked with gentle despair, "Do you have a name?"

With a friendly nod - more like a slight diagonal tilt, really - the seeker flashed a politely lopsided smile.

"Sure do, pal."

Silence. Well, at least he had one, even if he seemed uncomfortable sharing it. The Scientist was going to walk him - based on his vocals, the spark must have been male - through the process of sharing his name, but it turned out he didn't need to.

"Name's Thundercracker."

Silence. The Scientist frowned a bit in what looked like confusion, his metal brow scrunching like only microdermaplating can. What the slag kind of name was Thundercracker?

The Seeker frowned a bit in what looked like confusion, and his brow scrunched too. When the Scientist realized how unexpected his reaction must have been to the seeker, he focused his optics back onto Thundercracker with a smile on his face.

"A unique name."

Thundercracker seemed to be satisfied with the scientist's analysis and turned towards the rest of the Transformers in the Hall of Vector Sigma - the Scientist had forgotten about them while he was so enveloped in his excitement. He hopped up enthusiastically to meet the other two Seekers, who seemed to be fraternizing with the rest of the Scientist's team.

And just like how the Scientist was never amazed that he suddenly sprang to life, the seekers didn't even seem to realize that they had just been sparked, either.

* * *

It was only a short matter of time before the Scientific Exploration and Expansion of Knowledge program was a household name. After breezing through the Cybertronian Academy of the Sciences, the three seekers became some of the most famous scientists in Cybertron: 

Skywarp, the physics-model who promptly put meaning to his name by finding a mathematical loophole in the law of conservation of mass, consequently discovering how to teleport himself,

Thundercracker, the biology-model whose research was heralded as the reason that non-transition-metal based organisms were considered living organisms at all,

and Starscream, the chemistry-model working on a major project that looked to stave off the self-predicted energon crisis.

They were so successful, in fact, that more of these seekers were made. However, there was no co-operation from any of the Elders who could activate Vector Sigma, and so these 'neo-seekers' were not given sparks. They had the most advanced personality-chip technology available, which gave them a liberal amount of artificial intelligence, but they did not have the capacity to learn, adapt, develop individuality or deviate from their programming. Because of their lack of independence, the neo-seekers were put under the supervision of their respective archetypes.

Two of the seekers, Starscream and Thundercracker, found their new underlings to be more of a hindrance than a help because there was no way to delegate tasks among them. As a result of the slowing research, the SEEK program heeded the seekers' request to put the robots into stasis for an indeterminate amount of time.

Curiously, Skywarp did not seem to notice the presence nor the disappearance of these underlings. Skywarp himself seemed to be a mysterious character. None of his theories were ever written down, thus no record of his work existed. Though he had an intimate grasp on the fuzzy-logics of theoretical quantum mechanics, that grasp did not seem to extend to the real world - in other words, to the unknowing onlooker, he appeared to be incredibly absent-minded. It was a gossip-debate in the scientific community whether his actions and overall personality were due to him being a caliber of genius beyond their comprehension, or whether it was because he was just very, very stupid.

Though they were associated with their respective scientific academies, the seekers' personality chips - and sparks -had not limited them to their science. This was especially noticeable with Starscream. In fact, his project was clearly a combination of all types of sciences. As he once said in an interview, the problem of energy transcended all of the subcategories of science, as well as the many other fields - and his inspiration came from the other two Seekers' work as well as from his own. Thundercracker's strong opinion about the future availability of energy resources, Skywarp's despair at the pyramid of energy degradation, and his own knowledge of energy-producing chemical reactions spurred on his desire to, well, solve the energon crisis before it happened.

Thundercracker refused to work on projects that he did not feel had any real purpose, and his definition of purpose tended to lean towards the abstract - moral purpose, ethical conviction, and almost a sense of romantic heroics. An inexplicably odd trait of his, however, was that he always hovered - he never touched the ground unless absolutely necessary. When he spoke about ground-based organisms and ecosystems, he spoke with a tone that was considered by some to be disdainful at times.

* * *

It was probably only a few millennia later that the previously silenced factions - the Autobots and the Decepticons - had grown in numbers, political influence, and in enmity. 

It first escalated when a rogue named Megatron, famous in the underground political group the Decepticons, organized a raid on the Autobot headquarters. These acts of violence were common between the two groups, almost always initiated by the Decepticons, but there had never been an attack of this scale.

Still, the scale was not large. Yet there were two marked differences between this attack and the previous ones. For one, the Decepticons stole energon from the Autobot headquarters, which was undeniable proof that the Energon crisis had begun. The other difference was that an Autobot had been killed, and not in self-defense. The security camera, recently donated to the Autobots by a well-off sympathizer, recorded that Megatron threatened the small Autobot, who was nominally guarding the energon storage room, and the Autobot conceded, opening the door to the room. The other Decepticons - later identified as Shockwave, Soundwave, and Soundwave's creations Ravage, Rumble, and Frenzy - followed Megatron through the door. When they came back through the door, all were carrying multiple energon cubes except Megatron, who exited last. Megatron was almost out of the camera's view when he turned around and shot the compliant Autobot's head off with his fusion cannon.

Because of the regularity of conflicts between the Autobots and Decepticons, the reaction of the media and the general populace was only slightly less indifferent than usual. There was, of course, the group that was constantly concerned over the conflict - some because of the fear of an expansion of the factions (thus an expansion of conflict and violence), and others because of their empathy towards those who were caught in the violence and dying for a reason so obsolete that no one could remember what it was.

Of course, whenever the latest attacks made the news, there would be conversations among the populace - those that watch the news, at least. They were always the same: Apathetic indignation towards the actions of one side or another, a pithy but generic outrage about the casualties, and occasionally an argument with someone of a differing opinion. The next day - or, in the workplace, the next hour - the violence was forgotten, because it didn't affect them.

The same was for the aforementioned attack, with the exception that it was the focus of the news for longer than one day. The recording was the key - the manner and circumstances under which the victim was killed were made public. The conversations between Cybertronians became longer, more passionate, more personal, and more polarizing.

A few Transformers were of the opinion that this was not about conflicting views, but about diminishing resources and old, rusty land boundaries. Thundercracker's explanation for the whole thing was a simple, well known theory - that war is a density-based limiting factor. That is, when there are too many Transformers living too close together and consuming too many resources than are realistically sustainable, the Transformers start to kill each other.

Skywarp, though disinterested in the history of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict, was strangely fascinated by the recorded attack when he saw it on a public image transmitter in the window of a media-electronics store. With a quick search of the databases available at the Cybertronian Institute of Physics, he started to amass a collection of descriptions of various violent conflicts between the two groups. He skipped the history, the motives, the circumstances - he focused on the physical descriptions of the carnage - weapons used, wounds inflicted, the state of the bodies once they had been found. At first the two other seekers (all three individual and unique as they are) just assumed that he was studying the history of the Autobot-Decepticon conflict - and consequently so did everyone else who still cared about the SEEK program - Skywarp was not a good interviewee so was never asked about it.

It was not long until the energon crisis became a real inconvenience for the majority of the planet. And, just like the two times before, the majority of the planet was not taking it well - with out energon, Transformers started to go into permanent stasis that no known technology could get them out of, and in the worst cases, their sparks - and their color - left them completely. When Transformers didn't have enough to survive, they indeed turned to the desperation of conflict to give them somewhere to turn.

And any good leader knows that in order to gain loyal followers from a desperate population, the only thing they need is a simple answer; a simple solution; someone to blame. Whether the answer is true is relevant only when looking on as an observer: Both sides thought that it was they, not their opponents, who were in the right.

To an observer, however, there was a clear distinction between the two leaders - Megatron, who had fought his way to the control of the Decepticons, and Optimus Prime, who had found himself thrust into the position by popular demand.

Of course, this again depends on the observer's point of view, so no matter what situation or what population, everything is always subjective.

* * *

Like I said, this "prologue" isn't even complete. It seems to go off on a little tangent and you're like "What? War? Seekers? Fight? Hello?" but it will totally make sense. I'm so psyched about this, haha. I'm graduating high school in two days so I decide to write a story about Transformers. That's education, baby.

Anyway, I'd like some comments about how this is in terms of logic and stuff - I'm going to continue anyway just for me, but I'd like to know what's going on here. Thanks for getting this far, by the way!


	2. Side Effects

There are always some that never reach the point of desperation, even when everyone else does - and one of the leaders, Megatron, found that to be enough of a waste that he brought that despair upon those that otherwise would not have suffered.

Megatron never said 'never'. This ambition was one of the reasons why he had raised the obscure Decepticon group into a political power that was almost a way of life for many of the members. His method of gaining followers was to destroy and blame.

Realizing the power of flight, Megatron focused most of his efforts on those Transformers who could fly - and in doing so, created the image of land-bot prejudice against those who were able to fly. With telecommunication devices destroyed, the victims had no one else to believe, and nowhere else to direct their anger than to where Megatron pointed.

The Decepticons started attacking the Autobots with fervor, launching aerial assaults and in turn being shot from the sky. The Autobots, led by Prime, knew what Megatron was doing, but the emotions driving the Decepticons made any attempts at explaining the truth end up in redoubled aggression.

Where were the Seekers during the advent of the war?

Starscream had gone on a mission with the renowned scientist Jetfire, to a distant planet dubbed "Earth". The objective was to gather Carbon, a material that Starscream determined to be one of the key factors in the development of renewable Energon sources.

Thundercracker had been off-planet as well, studying the differences between "social" structure of two identical species in two different habitats with differing food availability, and was just about complete with the thesis.

Skywarp had joined the Decepticon cause.

At the brink of full-on war, Skywarp had found favor with Megatron because of his unique abilities. His design, intended to be flexible for future technological advances in scientific instruments, was ideal for weaponry to be attached. His intellect was ideal for manipulation by Megatron. His fascination with violence had the potential to be nurtured into an obsession with cruelty.

The Cybertronian War academy was, by this point, under the control of the Decepticons. Skywarp attended and his capabilities for flight and hit-and-run combat were unparalleled at the time of his early completion. Physics all but forgotten, his pleasure now came from inflicting pain - or at the very least, discomfort - upon anyone and everyone. This, of course, excluded his infallible leader Megatron, whose mastery of rhetoric and catchy phrases hooked Skywarp to the point where he never asked questions.

He didn't even ask questions when ordered to destroy the other two Seekers' labs as well as his own empty one.

Megatron's timing was impeccably calculated - as it should have been, since Shockwave was in charge of refining his plan.

Given the promise of the Seeker Skywarp, Megatron could only assume that the other two from the long-forgotten program had the same potential. Since both were gone from Cybertron, Megatron had their labs destroyed so that when they came back after essentially missing the complete division of Cybertron into two populations, they, too, would have no information to disprove Megatron when he blamed the Autobots for the attack.

The only variables left out were the success rates of the two Seekers' respective projects.

During Starscream's exploration of Earth, his partner Jetfire was lost in a sudden blizzard of incredible strength, and, because of Jetfire's build he was unable to free himself from the storm. One of the premier scientists of Cybertron's Golden Era was lost, as was Starscream's ability to analyze the usefulness of the various substances containing carbon on the savage planet. It was a setback to the discovery and invention that was supposed to make him one of the most famous figures in Cybertronian history, to be praised as the savior of the world for billions of years after his own deactivation!

Such setbacks could be tolerated, however. It wasn't like he was pressed for time; he could wait a million years if he had to.

Thundercracker had watched one section of the species annihilate themselves while the other section of the species had developed a co-operative lifestyle - a proto-culture, he would later name it - that revolved around peace. His reaction was mixed: On one hand, it was further evidence that resource availability influenced the actions of populations on a species-wide scale, but on the other hand he had neither learned nor discovered anything - he had wasted around a million years waiting around for the species. An advantage that made Thundercracker feel lucky to be a transformer was that not only did Transformers have minds quick enough to think of ideas, plans, and solutions with blistering speed, but also that each individual's life spanned a length of time so long that many worlds would change, species would evolve and become extinct, and cycles would spin a thousand times over.

Disheartened by the purposeless waste of time, Thundercracker returned to Cybertron to find it to bear a disturbing resemblance to the annihilated species from his studies about halfway through the species's destruction.

How could his species be so superior in so many ways, yet have an amount of wisdom comparable to species whose life spans were a million times shorter than that of a Transformer? When he found the remains of his home city smelted into a pile of regressive slag, he was only heartened by the fact that his lab was still there - and it wasn't so bad that the destruction of the surrounding area made his return to Cybertron go unnoticed. He had some time to reorganize his theories; regroup his intentions. Part of gathering his bearings included watching transmissions from old newscasts - they were innumerable, and they were filled with reports of attacks on and by both Decepticons and Autobots. The more recent the newscast, the more likely that the attacks were performed by the Autobots - and, disturbingly, the more likely that the attacks were on areas known as having primarily aerial-Transformer populations.

One night, as Thundercracker had finished watching the newscast on the destruction of the city he was sitting right in the middle of, he heard a sliding noise - he was cautious; the area he was in was not as gleaming and safe as it had been a mere million years before, so it could have been someone sneaking around. Checking the sliding door of his lab, it appeared to be nothing and the noise was gone as soon as it came..

Of course, anyone, no matter how stupid, could recognize the beeping noise he now heard as the counter to a time bomb. Turning on the jets that also functioned as his heels, he punched in the code to open the door in a panic. He was able to get out of the lab itself, but not out of the building. The bomb went off.

When Thundercracker woke up, he was mostly unharmed, save for the error messages about his vocals and his engines. He had to get out of here.

Transforming into his jet mode, he turned on his engines to hear them rumbling - no, more like _roaring_. Muttering to himself about what the slag was wrong, he got caught off guard by his own voice - the explosion had damaged his vocals. His voice, too, had a sort of rumbling quality to it.

Other than that, everything seemed to be normal, except for his entire life which had just been turned upside down by the destruction of his lab and of his research.

A million years was nothing compared to the amount of time, effort, energy, and work Starsceam had put into his project, and when he returned to Cybertron to write up both the log of his fieldwork and an Epitaph for Jetfire, but that turned out to be impossible. All of his work, all of passion, all of his potential _fame_ (and also the hopes of sustainable energon use) - destroyed in an attack on his lab! What _idiot_ would destroy his work? It was essential to the survival of Cybertron! Inflicted with one blow of frustration and personal loss was enough to make a Transformer a little glitched, but having that experience followed up by the complete destruction of his life's planning at the brink of its realization drove Starscream to what can arguably be considered insanity.

Starscream wanted revenge. Skywarp, on behalf of the Decepticons, dutifully informed him of the villainous Autobots that had viciously attacked his lab and effectively destroyed any chance that Starscream had at being the one Transformer to stop the war and solve the Energon problem. He could, however, be known throughout history by eliminating the Autobots by joining the Decepticons.

If Starscream could not be the most brilliant scientist in history, then he would have to settle for being the most powerful warrior in the known universe.

Thundercracker was at a loss. His frustration was also, with the guidance of the Decepticons, aimed towards the Autobots. Thundercracker did not know any better. All he knew was that based on the Autobots' supposed attacks on aerial Transformers, as well as the destruction of not only _his_ lab, but the labs of Starscream and Skywarp, there was sort of a justification to direct his anger towards the Autobots. On top of that, Starscream and Skywarp were now Decepticons, and he, too, desired a place to go. Despite his general wariness towards the direction that war would take the Cybertronians, his desire for the ability to associate with something and with others drove him to also join the Decepticon ranks.


	3. Curiosity

Sorry it took me so long. I hope that I had put a disclaimer in the first chapter than warns of my flightiness when it comes to writing stories. I'm not really much of an author - - with the Power of Grayskull, however, perhaps I can finish this story. Just give me a year or two. As you can tell, I never finished my Mortal Kombat story, and as an aside, I've posted two other stories on that I took down and never completed. Anyway, here goes.

* * *

That was a long time ago. Like, five million years ago. 'Course, four million of those years had been spent in temporal stasis, so they didn't really count in the here and now. Well, at least not in the 'here'.

While he and everyone else - Auto- and Decepti-geeks both - had been dreaming away, the war had completely destroyed their planet, their civilization, their home. Most of the population was in stasis, much like they had been for four million years. There was no energy on the planet.

Thundercracker always moped like this. Everyone in this little purple base knew that he told them so. It was going to happen. Cybertron was going to run out of energy.

But now they were awake, and they had to do something about it. Granted, they'd been awake for a while now, maybe for a rotation of this planet around its sun. It seemed like a _real_ long time.

It was like a curse, really. He mulled the idea over and over in his processors until he got stir-crazy. An Earth 'year', as the aboriginals called it, was a slaggin' long time, and life was, according to calculations, approximately a billion times longer.

They had to stay on this planet until they had enough energy to end the war once and for all. Earth was particularly dirty and wet - - and those Autogeeks were always reminding him of that, 'cause he always somehow ended up drenched in the slimy dihydrogen oxide, carbon, potassium and Primus knows what else that was in what the Humans called 'water'. Or sometimes called 'agua' by them. Or, sometimes more accurately called "nian" by them, full of gunk as it was.

Odd that these creatures didn't have a universal language. If he had his way, he'd study them - they were fascinating, and a part of him even believed them to be quite amazing. Of course, he sucker-punched that part of him way into the back of his Memory and encrypted it. Try as he might, though, he had studied - and learned - that encryption only happened as a defense mechanism to block out traumatic experiences so that the mind could still function without overload.

These humans - "squishies", as Skywarp aptly named them - were a whole new type of life. He'd never, ever encountered organisms that were carbon-based. Non-transition-metal based, of course, since that was one of his first breakthroughs, but never carbon-based. The atmosphere of the planet was mostly Nitrogen, though almost _all_ of the organisms were fueled by a combination of oxygen, carbohydrates, and, of course, water. (Dihydrogen oxide? A mouthful, even when just thinking the word.)

They were electric. They had an electromagnetic field around them, much like their planet. Their pumps - hearts - worked in a similar fashion to those of the Transformers. Electricity. They generated heat.

They got their energy from what they consumed - and they consumed almost everything. But, the energy for all but one type of organism at the bottom of the sea came from the sun. "Plants" took their energy directly from the sun. "Photosynthesis", the curious humans had named it.

He didn't learn any of this through observation. The only way he _could_ learn it was by reading the humans' own discoveries.

According to their research, they had been living on this planet in their current societal system for approximately 12,000 Earth-years. Thundercracker found this to be unbelievable. There was no way that these tiny creatures, with their tiny processors and their tiny life span, had, in a mere 12,000 years - developed the technology, harnessed the power of metals, gained so much knowledge about themselves, the micro-verse, and the universe that they did.

Granted, the amount of knowledge they had acquired was quite limited, quite vague, and quite 'ethnocentric'. (None of their multitudinous languages had a word for species-centric, or planet-centric, because these creatures had no real concept of other beings in the universe.) Still, Thundercracker was impressed by the time in which they had discovered these things.

They didn't look like they were about to stop, either. They had a long way to go. Their weapons technology was, by Cybertronian standards, pathetic, but the weapons seemed to be effective in destroying fellow humans. Was every sentient being out there the same, wanting to self-destruct?

Of course not. Half of the sentient beings, if not most, would want peace and co-operation, but the few who didn't, the few who wanted power, were ruthless and stepped on those who were too compassionate to defend themselves in order to gain control. Control is always easily gained through ruthlessness, and those who were not disgusted by cruelty were always the ones in control. And they would always exist to end times of peace. It seemed to be a law of the universe. Or multiverse. Whatever. Astronomy wasn't really his thing.

He wanted to take a few of the humans and dissect them; he wanted to put a few in a controlled environment and test them. He wanted to learn how they worked.

He couldn't. His curiosity was a weakness. The more and more he learned about the creatures, the less and less he wanted to destroy them. He acknowledged that destroying them was not the reason why the Decepticons were staying on Earth; it was to harvest the energy the planet supplied. But the Decepticons didn't care if they killed a few thousand of the humans while doing so. They, as a whole, took pleasure in the fact that when they sucked Earth dry of its energy, the humans would go extinct, as would everything else on the planet, if the planet itself didn't implode.

If Thundercracker couldn't tell anyone the real reason for his hesitation, maybe he could plead a case for inefficiency. Killing 'em was a waste of energy. Sucking the planet dry meant that it would never replenish its energy and would never be a source of energy again; they'd lose a valuable resource.

Of course, he'd never say that. Slag, why did he have to be so questioning? Why did he want to learn so much? They were primitive. They were going to end up destroying themselves anyway, so what would it hurt to just speed it up? He slammed the side of his fist into the alloy wall and headed towards the transporter to prove to himself that he was a strong, superior being. After all, he controlled the sky.

* * *

That was random. It was going to be funny and stuff at first, but then I rambled. Hey, speaking of which, anyone maybe want to be a Beta? I don't even read over my work after I'm finished typing. 


	4. All kinds of better than you

I just realized I have to do all three Seekers in order to bring it to the present time, don't I?

* * *

Skywarp sat in his little metal cubicle-thing, cramped for space and wanting some fresh air. 'Course, he really didn't need air for anything but cooling systems, so the actual _amount_ of air available didn't matter - it was just a figure of speech. 

He was stir-crazy.

He had cabin fever.

Ants in his pants.

He even had schpilkus.

He laughed. The squishies talked real funny. Of course, language was never his thing, so he couldn't really complain, 'cept that his knowledge and advanced. . uh. . his advanced superiority to the little jellybags made it so that they shouldn't even connect to him on any level. And really, they didn't.

See, these creatures and him, this world and him, they didn't get along so well. It came down to a simple list.

All the Decepticons looked real different from each other. Who could mistake Skywarp for, say, Starscream? Skywarp was black, purple, and handsome as Outer Space whereas Starscream was silver, red, and blue, shining all over the place like "Attention! Attention!" - though _everyone_ knows who's the handsomer one.

The squishies? There's no way to tell them apart. They're all tiny blobs of indeterminate shape that only came in the slightest different range of colors. They were all the same shade of one hue, even. They were warrin' with each other or something over their supposedly grand differences - when they were all the same!

See, Skywarp knew that by stompin' on all of the squishies, he was doing them a favor. Getting rid of them 'cause all they did was live out miserable, short little existences where they either killed each other or did the same thing over and over and over again for fifty of their years. Sit. Drive. Sit. Consume. Sit. Drive. Reproduce. Sit. Consume. Reproduce. Consume. Reproduce.

If someone didn't stop 'em now, they'd take over the universe like petro-rabbits!

Who said that the Decepticons were a bad thing? See, Skywarp knew how it was. The Decepticons, the creatures fit to rule the universe, _knew what they were doing._ Megatron _always_ had a plan. He wasn't _stupid_. Take the squishies and their planet, for instance.

The squishies, though blessed with the mind-boggling ability to reproduce by a mysterious process he was only told was called 'mating', (and 'mate' they did - Apparently their population sextupled in about 50 of their years), were stupid and primitive. They didn't put their planet to good use. They had ambition that was admirable, but their lack of any other skill and strength made what would be called "confidence" in the Decepticons into "cockiness". They were so full of themselves. . .again, stompin' on 'em would just be doing 'em a favor.

They were lucky Skywarp did 'em favors like getting rid of them quicker. Skywarp _really_ didn't like 'em. So soft and weak, yet so. . .so. . ._loud_. And they made the sky gray. Their grasp on "physics" (as shown by Thundercracker - - who, when asked _why_ he was looking at human science, replied something like "needing to know your enemy" even though humans were so nonthreatening and easy to deal with that no tactics were really needed) was completely off the mark, and their inability to conquer each other just displayed their utter lack of competence.

At this point, Skywarp didn't really care about the whole "big picture, rule the universe" thing that the Decepticons were all about - it was a given, and one of his drives, but not the biggest one. On Earth, he hated those little annoying humans and wanted to kill as many as possible. He wanted to destroy their cities 'cause their cities were unorganized, dirty, and primitive. He wanted to make their offspring cry because they _could_ and because _he_ could, and because the weak squishies couldn't do a _slagged_ thing _about_ it.

He loved having this kind of power, knowing that there was such outrage and loss of control, such deeply touching 'emotions' - talkin' about painful scarring memories that change peoples' lives - caused by him and him alone. It's for the same reason that Skywarp loved playing pranks. 'Cause it messed people up and he was _good_ at it. Better than almost anyone. Only dopes fell for pranks and succumbed to attacks, so they were asking for it. If they can't beat him, well, they deserve their fate.

Just thinking about the carnage and suffering he could single-handedly dish out made him excited. Maybe it _was_ time to go get some fresh air. Make a few clouds of his own out of smoke and fire and widescale, massive destruction. He hopped up from his recharge bay where he'd been daydreaming, and teleported out towards the hangar, waiting to be transported to the surface.

Thousands would suffer, and thousands more would feel the pain of the dead and the wounded for generations to come, all because Skywarp was bored today and had an hour to kill.

A city was gonna burn. Little mini-squishies were gonna die. Panic was gonna be widespread. Maybe even the Autobots would have to come appear. The humans would be defenseless against such an onslaught.

The best part, though, was that Skwarp would be there, causing it, and laughing all the way.

* * *

They seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Anyway, so I guess Starscream is up next, 'eh? I better put on my crazy. And a beta! Someone love me enough? For instance, I wrote this chapter quickly. I should redo it and add lots of stuff to it, because it's not, err, comprehensive. Not fair to those that love the 'Warp, and not fair to me because I _know_ I had way more ideas. Mostly not fair to me. 


	5. Power

And now the robot who probably has not two but _three _religions based on him: Starscream. And for good reason! He's such a. . colorful character. And hey, even though I _promise_ I'm going to go back and edit these to make them better, I'm on a roll! Three in, like, four days? That's incredible! And I'm not even on a Transformers kick!

* * *

There was no excuse. 

No excuse for this incompetence. This lack of efficiency. Just because something didn't seem _clever_ enough didn't mean it wasn't the way to go.

Since the Decepticons and the wretched Autobots had been on the filthy, backwards planet Earth with creatures who had only left their planet a total of maybe six times, there had been countless opportunities to end this little vacation, drain the planet of its energy, and destroy the Autobots once and for all. They could have gone home _months_ ago, had it not been for Megatron's love affair with ridiculously complex plans.

Starscream, sitting in his quarters' control panel, double-checking the attributes of a large hydro-power dam, felt a vibration make its way through his motor relays from top to bottom. A shudder.

Earth.

This planet, long before it had inhabitants, had destroyed his career. Sometimes Starscream wondered if it had destroyed his life, too, but then the horrified cries and dimming optics of his enemies always drove that dreaded feeling away. After all, had it not been for the trip to Earth and the loss of Jetfire, he would have never discovered his passion for war and battle, and would have never experienced the pleasure such destruction and power gave him.

He would never admit it to anyone unless it was to his advantage, but Starscream had admired Jetfire, and even considered him a friend. Starscream had always felt slightly guilty for his loss, and when he came back to a destroyed life's work, he vowed to make it up to his friend by destroying those who had made Jetfire die in vain.

Who knew he'd end up sleeping on the same planet that ruined his career for four million years?

Starscream chuckled, sort of. A low, quiet, angry sound. His optics narrowed. It wasn't this planet. It was Megatron.

Megatron was no idiot. That's why he was the leader of the group of beings that were going to take over the known universe. That's why he had so many followers, and that's why he commanded his troops with the confidence of knowing that they would obey his orders, out of fear if nothing else.

Megatron was charismatic. He was able to talk his way out of paying for his failures. He was able to talk his way into the anger and fear and pride of millions, convincing them that they were the masters of the universe and deserved to destroy all that stood in their way.

Starscream agreed with all of that. It was true. The Decepticons were a breed of creature far beyond any other. Yes, a _breed_. Though the Autobots and the Decepticons were both Transformers and both Cybertronian, the difference in willpower caused the great dichotomy between them. The Autobots were weak with compassion and their leaders were weak with mercy and empathy. Because of their hesitance to break the code of so-called "morals" that they worship, the Autobots did not take the opportunities to destroy their enemies or take advantage of others that the Decepticons did, which is why they would never be fit to lead anything. They weren't practical. They weren't logical. They simply did not have the facilities to be in charge.

That is why Starscream was second in command. He was similar to Megatron, and maybe, deep in the back of his mind, he understood Megatron's reasoning and would have done the same thing in his position.

Would have destroyed the lab.

If Starscream had found out that it was Megatron and the Decepticons who had destroyed his lab at a different time; if he had found out _before_ he had developed a taste for power through destruction, fear, and conquest, then he would have left. But he had found a part of him that desired the universe; a part of him that hated the Autobots for their weakness instead of for what he thought they did to him.

Starscream knew that he could not try to ignore the memories that were popping up in his head, because he had to keep his anger and spite high at all times. No leader who wanted to be powerful and mighty and feared could ever calm down. If he wanted control, he could never relax or else he would lose the passion and the fire that drove him towards his ultimate goal.

As time went on after he had joined the Decepticons, Starscream was starting to get a feel for how the Autobots 'ticked', so to speak. Their compassion. Their empathy. Their mercy. Their honesty. Their weakness.

How could these sappy Transformers have destroyed his lab? They babbled on about peace and love and equality, so why would they have destroyed the most famous work-in-progress for near-unlimited Energon sources?

Starscream finally settled for the hypothesis that the Autobots must have thought that an unlimited supply of energy would mean an unlimited amount of firepower with which to destroy each other.

He had to settle for this hypothesis because it was imperfect. Why would the Autobots want their home planet to run out of energy, when that would cause all of them to fall into stasis? They wanted everyone to be in a state of suspended animation until some aliens came over and found them? They'd rather be dead than at war?

Since this was a hypothesis only, and one that left Starscream doubting, he decided to ask Megatron. Megatron knew things that Starscream didn't, because as a leader, he knew that there were certain. . things that a leader kept to themselves and themselves only - not even their second-in-command could know everything. Knowledge is power, and in order to stay in power one must keep knowledge in check.

Megatron had laughed and told him that it didn't matter why they did it, just that they did. Besides, he said, that was millions of years ago. Starscream was no longer a scientist, he was a warrior. His hatred for the Autobots should be for their weakness, not because of some little explosion that had occurred in the past. The whole science thing was a distraction for Starscream, anyway. And even better, Megatron added, the destruction of his lab had caused Starscream to join the Decepticon cause and help realize the goal towards total conquest.

It was then that Starscream put two and two together, so to speak. It was so logical. It was so practical. It was so merciless and cruel.

It was Megatron. Megatron had destroyed his lab - and Thundercracker's lab, and Skywarp's lab. The plan was a classic Megatron Master Plan. And Megatron had kept his cool for half a million years. Starscream, the brilliant scientist, uncanny at deducting the truth from random clues and evidence, had been fooled the whole time.

He was angry at Megatron, indeed. Furious. But a part of him knew that it was absolutely brilliant and absolutely the Decepticon way. It was the kind of thing that Starscream would proudly do himself, and was the kind of action that made the Decepticons more powerful than the Autobots and the rest of the creatures in the universe who "played fair".

He wanted to destroy Megatron, and Megatron knew it. It was for vengeance, and it was for power. Starscream would have never joined the Autobots, even if his lab wasn't destroyed, because he desired fame and worship far too much to settle for universal equality and coexistence. He wondered if maybe some time long ago he _would_ have settled for that.

Who was he kidding? Of course not!

So back to what happened when he found out that _Megatron_ had destroyed his life's work. Ah, yes. Starscream seethed, and his irritation grew when Megatron didn't do anything about it. Megatron didn't view Starscream as a threat. Not at all. Starscream knew, however, that Megatron must have had confidence in Starscream's abilities because he was not demoted. He was still Second-in-Command, and knew more about how Megatron planned and how Megatron led than anyone else - with the probable exceptions of Soundwave and Shockwave, who were Megatron's confidants because of their unwavering loyalty. They were Megatron's ideal Decepticon followers, _because_ of their loyalty. They did not question Megatron's actions, and Shockwave, despite having complete control over Cybertron for four million years, still yielded to Megatron's word the _second_ they made contact.

But they were only followers, because their loyalty was almost to the point of some kind of _honor_. It was that weakness, loyalty, that meant they would never be true leaders; that made them benign.

As the years went by, Starscream started studying Megatron in a new light. Not as the glorious leader that would destroy the Autobots and lead the Decepticons to ultimate power, but as a test subject of sorts. He was observing him objectively, as he would a lab rat. Starscream had found that Megatron had a glaring weakness: his pride. He would do anything to save face, even if it meant abandoning a perfect opportunity to crush his enemies or to pass by a chance to manipulate some group of unintelligent beings in order to gain an advantage. He would retreat far too quickly in order to save face - he would simply _give up._

Starscream was biding his time and he was constantly making direct and brash vies for power at inopportune moments. He would then supplicate himself to Megatron, which Megatron thought was humiliating to Starscream. This pattern, which had continued on Earth as well, kept Megatron at bay - kept Megatron thinking that Starscream wasn't a threat.

At least, Starscream would keep telling himself that, and keep convincing himself that he wasn't honestly trying to usurp Megatron when he performed these stunts. He tried, even though he knew that no one was really on his side; they were all too convinced by Megatron, or in some cases, too scared of Megatron.

Starscream was not a jet with incredible foresight, but he was a jet with mind-boggling determination. He had a trump-card, one that he had been waiting for 500,001 years to use, and if Megatron didn't get them off of this planet soon, away from its filthy, useless creatures and its quite disturbing memories, he was going to use it.

As he heard a slight rumbling go past his door, jet engines powered low, he grinned as his trump card hovered by.

* * *

I'm glad that wasn't less than 1,000 words! But it looks like there's some kind of _plot_ forming. Of course, it was actually my intention the whole time, but I couldn't bring myself to actually focus on it. And I know this isn't really about humans at all, but I figure Starscream doesn't really give a flying rat about humans. Master Solo! Wanna be my beta? 


End file.
